On the other side of the mountainside, on a flat patch of ground beneath a cliff.
The air was thick with a murderous aura. Ji Li stood there quietly, the Evil Qi swirling around him having transformed from its original grayish-black to a startling shade of dark red.
The red glow cast against his white robes gave him a strangely domineering beauty.
Across from him, a burly examinee stood with his back against the rock wall, his face pale as he trembled uncontrollably.
It was despair.
"Ji... Ji Li..."
The examinee swallowed hard, his voice thick with tears and pleading. "For the sake of our three years as classmates, can you... can you just let me go this one time?"
Watching Ji Li press forward step by step, his mental defenses were on the verge of collapse.
"I... I still want to make it to the third round! I still want to fight for a spot in the top ten!"
"Even if I just get to stand on the tournament stage for a moment, even if I end up losing, at least... at least my three years of hard work will have meant something! At least I’ll get a glimpse of the greater heights!"
Getting eliminated in this second round wasn’t life-threatening; the Spirit Realm’s Restriction would automatically teleport him out.
But it also meant that his journey in the Immortal Official Examination was over.
Three years of bitter cultivation, a dream shattered in an instant. Such a blow was far too heavy for any young man with aspirations to bear.
As the student spoke, he staggered backward until his back was pressed firmly against the cold stone wall, with nowhere left to retreat.
However, faced with his classmate’s pathetic pleas, Ji Li’s handsome, jade-like face remained utterly indifferent, showing not a hint of emotion.
"Our bond?"
Ji Li stopped, his apathetic gaze sweeping over the other student as if he were looking at an ant. His voice was calm, devoid of any worldly emotion.
"The path of cultivation is a narrow, single-plank bridge. Once you set foot on it, you are a competitor. What room is there for bonds?"
"You’ve come this far. If you truly want to advance, if you truly want to see the view from the top..."
Ji Li slowly raised his hand. The Power of Primordial Magnetism surged in his palm, and a terrifying pressure instantly enveloped the area.
"Then stop begging. Show me your strength. Prove you have the right to stand here!"
With that, he said no more and thrust out his palm!
BOOM!
The Power of Primordial Magnetism crashed down with the force of a landslide.
Although the student also had a Cultivation at the Qi Cultivation Third Layer and was considered skilled in his year, he was already terrified before the fight even began. Faced with Ji Li’s almost crushing aura, he couldn’t even muster seventy percent of his strength.
He barely managed to parry a few times. After just ten moves, with a dull thud, the student was viciously struck in the chest by Ji Li’s Primordial Magnetic Seal. He was sent flying backward like a kite with a snapped string, his Protective Spiritual Light shattering instantly.
BZZZT—
Just as he was about to hit the ground, grievously injured, a beam of white light descended from the sky and enveloped him.
The Spirit Realm’s protection mechanism had been triggered.
"I can’t accept this!!"
With a shrill, resentful roar, the student’s figure slowly faded within the white light, eventually vanishing completely.
All that remained was a dense cloud of Evil Qi floating in mid-air—what he had painstakingly gathered from hunting Demon Beasts.
With a deadpan expression, Ji Li beckoned with his hand. The cloud of Evil Qi flew into his body like a young swallow returning to its nest, and the red glow around him intensified.
On the ground lay a lone Magic Sword, a Low-Grade Dharma Artifact that his opponent had dropped in his panic.
Ji Li casually summoned it to his hand. He glanced at its unremarkable grade with a flicker of disdain in his eyes before hanging it from his waist.
’I’ve gotten even stronger...’
Recalling the brief exchange, Ji Li clenched his fist slightly, feeling the surging power within his body.
Before the Immortal Official Examination, even if he could have beaten a classmate of this caliber, he would have needed ten or twenty moves to win, if only to drag things out a bit to save face.
But after the crucible of the first round, and especially now with the terrifying amplification from the Evil Qi, the gap between them had not shrunk. Instead, it had widened into a chasm.
This was the snowball effect of the strong.
One step ahead, always ahead.
Ji Li raised his head, his gaze piercing through the dense woods toward the mountain peak.
’In this Spirit Realm, painstakingly hunting for Demon Beasts one by one is ultimately too inefficient.’
’One person’s strength is, after all, limited...’
A cold smirk touched the corners of his lips as he muttered to himself,
"Hunting other hunters... is much faster."
"Finally... we’ve reached high ground."
Chem Wangming stood on a jutting rock, wiped the sweat from his brow, and glanced back.
By now, seventeen figures had gathered around him.
This hastily assembled team was already quite large. Their journey from a small group of three to this seventeen-person offensive-defensive alliance had not been entirely smooth sailing.
They had, of course, met with considerable resistance during the recruitment process.
Not everyone was willing to entrust their back to strangers. Some even scoffed at the idea of huddling together for warmth, preferring to go it alone and fight for their own opportunities.
Chem Wangming showed no mercy to these "ungrateful" lone wolves.
After a brief discussion, a few exchanged glances were all it took for the group to tacitly agree to act together.
After being surrounded and attacked, the loners who refused to join became stepping stones for the team to build its rapport, turning into beams of white light as they were eliminated.
The methods were cruel, but in the fiercely competitive Immortal Official Examination, this was the law of survival.

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